Monthly Archives: March 2010

Thirty eight people died and over 70 were badly injured when two bombs exploded on the Moscow metro during yesterday’s morning rush hour. This is not just a tragedy in which working people died, but an act intended to terrify people, an act which will have serious social and political consequences.

"It really beggars belief that trade union leaders would have the brazenness to propose to low and middle income public sector workers that they should agree, not just an acceptance of the savage wage cuts already meted out, but ‘revolutionary’ measures that can have a further devastating effect on the incomes and working conditions of those workers.

There is no hint of modesty in Fine Gael’s claims for its future economic and political plans. This is the ‘most ambitious programme for political reform since the 1930s’ according to their leading spokespeople as they proclaim their vision of a ‘New Republic.’ Alas Fine Gael’s ‘new’ Republic would look very similar to the old one which that party had a big hand in fashioning.

The government offers this generation of young people three choices for the future; unemployment, emigration or low paid, yellow pack jobs. Since the outbreak of the crisis, young people have been hammered by the government in the form of vicious cuts to education, training and social welfare.

Over the course decades thousands of young children were to suffer horrific sexual abuse at the hands of members of the Catholic clergy around the world while their superiors sought to systematically cover up these crimes.

There is a palpable feeling of euphoria that extends beyond Washington over the passage of what is known as the Obama Health Care bill in the House of Representatives. The US Health Care Act passed with a narrow majority of 219-212 with not a single Republican vote in favor – despite Obama’s and the Democrats’ efforts to make the bill as attractive as possible to the conservative Republican base.

In Part two of a three part article on the Irish economy, Paul Murphy looks at some of the factors depressing the domestic economy, focusing on debt and unemployment, as well as analysing whether the government's export focused strategy can be successful.

Whether it is current Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki or opposition leader, Iyad Allawi, that emerges triumphant from this month’s elections, the outcome will be the same for the vast majority of ordinary Iraqi workers and their families – a further entrenchment of communal divisions, instability and poverty.

The proposal to close fifteen libraries in the Belfast area has been met with strong opposition. Hazel Gilliland, who has been campaigning against the closures in Ballymacarrett told the The Socialist that, "the proposals would have a devastating effect.